Dear COVID-19 is a weekly column supplied by
Drs. Rithesh and Veronique Ram
Dear COVID-19.
Many of us will celebrate birthdays during your reign, Covid. For many, parades have replaced parties during this pandemic. Cars pass homes honking in salutation, neighbours paint windows, place yard signs or hang balloons. In fact, if you Google “birthdays during Covid,” you’ll come across dozens of articles on how to celebrate a birthday during a pandemic. Aside from the aforementioned, some suggestions include:
· Virtual Gatherings (House Party, Anyone?)
· Mail a Special Treat (Chips over Chocolate, Always)
· Surprise Subscriptions (Amazon Prime for those who have worked through Netflix)
· Celebrity Cameos (you can pay for a personal shout-out…Brandi Carlile for me, please).
· Celebratory Slideshows (because we all love to see photographs of ourselves we haven’t selected for show)
I knew as soon as the WHO declared the Coronavirus a world pandemic that my epic 40th birthday was over. No trip, no spa, no amazing race adventure, no fancy pants dinner at a fine dine restaurant with miniscule dishes we’d all “wow” about. But really…as a working Mom of 3 turning 40 (yep, cue the cringe), I’d love to sleep in until 8 a.m., not pick-up any puppy messes, go for a run, play outside with my kids (well, sit in the sun and watch my kids play), enjoy a great board game (Pandemic, anyone), and Zoom chat with some friends when the kids go to bed. I couldn’t help but wonder today, why are birthdays such a big deal? A big enough deal that during a pandemic, we’ve found creative ways to make sure these special days are not forgotten.
Birthdays are perhaps more important than ever during a health crisis; a reminder of the frailty of life and the opportunity to reflect on another year gone by. The triumphs, the stumbles, the laughter, the tears. The scenes that make up a mini-movie-montage in your memory like a clock encased in glass. For that is why birthdays matter: time. For as tired as we may be after a day of work, hours of home-schooling, weeks of daily housework or months of social distancing, we know if we were lying in an ICU bed struggling to breathe, we’d wish for the days when we had to teach our kids fractions, work from home in our PJs, pick up dog poop and go to bed exhausted because we lived, rather than fought to live.
To my Covid Birthday Buddies: may you remember this year in moments rather than months. May the everlasting days resonate as a gift rather than burden. Happy birthday.
